Chapter 6: Beach Party

Meanwhile, at the beach, the boys had spent the first two hours enjoying the water and soaking up some sun. There were few other people on the beach at this time, and they didn't really know anyone in the neighborhood yet anyway.

"Man, I'm sleepy, I don't know why laying in the sun tires a person out so much."

"I don't think that's what has you so tired, Don," John said, "I think going to sleep so late, watching Amy and the girls, and getting up early to watch them some more does that."

"Yeah," Ron agreed, "I know what you mean. I really don't know if I slept much at all, I was so excited. Maybe we should go home and lay down."

"We can just take a nap right here," John asked. "Why do you think I brought the tent for? Help me put it up and we can get some sleep here and later go back in the water a while. We still need to try and meet some kids our own age, and I think we have a better chance of doing that here than in our own beds."

"But we can eventually take them to our own beds, right?" Don asked, grinning mischievously at John.

"Eventually," John said smiling back, "now help me with the tent."

The other two agreed with the plan and got to work pitching their tent. It was a rather large tent, in fact, up to five people could comfortably lay in it at one time, and it stood 7 feet tall so standing in it was also an easy task. Despite its size, however, the boys had it up in no time, having several years of family camping trip experience with it. When they had finished, however, they were even more tired and simply zipped up the front and lay on the floor, instantly falling asleep.

Around an hour and a half later, John awoke to the sounds of much music, screaming, running and murmuring. He thought it must be near or just past noon as, even through the tents heavy material, he could feel the suns rays directly above him. Looking over at his brothers and seeing them still fast asleep he thought, as he had many times before, "these two could sleep through the bombing of Pearl Harbor."

Getting up and walking to the door, he quickly unzipped the front entrance and stepped out. He noticed immediately that the beach was no longer semi-deserted; in fact, it was hard to see a spot that wasn't inundated with people. He looked around and, though there were people of all ages, it was obvious that most were kids between 8 and 15.

"Cool tent." He heard someone say behind him.

Turning, John saw a group of around 8 kids with a soccer ball. The group consisted of 5 girls and 3 boys, and John did not miss noticing that some of the girls were studying him with great interest, but he could tell that they were junior high school kids.

"Hi," John said, "wow, what's going on, this beach was almost deserted an hour ago."

"We're having a party," one of the girls said.

"You're not from around here, are you?" It was one of the boys that had spoken, he sounded somewhat rude, but probably not intentionally.

"JASON!" the girl who had been speaking exhorted, and then turning back to John said, "what my brother means is that all kids in the area know that this the weekend of the annual 'end-of-summer' beach extravaganza. Students from all the local schools will be gathering here for the next two days and nights."